London's front-line stocks succumbed to nothing more than a modest dose of profit-taking yesterday, as investors decided to book some of the decent gains recorded over the previous three sessions.

It was generally accepted in the market yesterday that the Federal Reserve's interest rate setting open market committee would opt to leave rates on hold for the time being. This proved to be the case.

At the finish of the quietest trading session since the turn of the year, the FTSE 100 showed a 23.7 decline at 6,707.5. At its worst of the day, not long after trading in London commenced, the index was down 55.6 at 6,675.6. The FTSE 250 index finished at a closing high of 6,330.8, adding 0.8. The SmallCap gave a further clear demonstration of the appetite for Internet and related issues, as well as many other so-called penny stocks. It settled 17.4 up at a record intraday and closing high of 3.,020.1. Turnover at 6 p.m. was 886.9 million shares.